“You’re a Mystic,” Jahrra said automatically, her mouth barely forming the words.
The woman’s kind smile froze on her face, as if a blast of northern wind had hit her before she had time to brace herself. Jahrra heard Torrell make a choking sound beside her.
Eventually, the woman thawed. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Her voice was harsher, its kindness gone.
Jahrra swallowed. “You are a Mystic. You’re no fortune teller. You could tell us our names if you wished.”
The woman seemed to bristle. “Mystics are a myth, young woman, and of course I do not know your names. How could I? You just stepped into my store! I cast fortunes, that is all.”
Jahrra felt Torrell grab her arm in a vice-like grip.
The woman stepped swiftly forward, streaming past the girls, and went directly to the door.
“I’ll kindly ask you to leave if you are to come in here and toss around such disrespectful words. I’ll not have you chasing away my customers by spouting off such foolishness. I don’t know who you think you are, but I will not tolerate brazen young ladies with wild ideas.”
She yanked the door open and held it for Jahrra and Torrell. The cat had long since disappeared up the stairs that climbed along the wall in one corner.
Jahrra stepped forward, seeming to forget she had Torrell with her, and said to the woman, her voice low, “Mystics are not a myth, and I have every right to believe you are one.”
“Jahrra, let’s just go. We’ve insulted the kind woman enough,” Torrell insisted through gritted teeth as she pulled on Jahrra’s arm.
Jahrra shrugged her off.
“There is a korehv sitting on your sign outside, your hair is a very unusual color and,” Jahrra paused and looked the woman directly in the eye, “your eyes.”
The woman blinked and looked away, her pale topaz eyes focusing on something down the street. She seemed defeated and her stiff shoulders relaxed a bit, but she still denied what Jahrra tried to claim.
“Nay, child, you are mistaken. Mystics do not exist.”
Jahrra didn’t miss the change in her stance.
“But I know a Mystic,” she whispered, loud enough for the woman to hear but for Torrell to miss.
“Oh?” the fortune teller said in the same quiet tone. “And do tell me, who might this supposed Mystic be?”
She crossed her arms and took on a haughty look.
Jahrra took a breath and glanced over her shoulder for Torrell. She had moved to the middle of the street and was casting a plaintive look at her friend who insisted on lingering in front of the fortune teller’s shop.
Jahrra turned her attention back to the woman and answered her question with another harsh whisper, “The Mystic Archedenaeh.”
A bolt of shock coursed through the woman. Jahrra knew this only because she was certain she had felt it. Her already pale face paled even further and her yellow eyes went wide with unadulterated fear.
“You lie, girl!” the woman hissed, her teeth bared and her lips thin and white.
Jahrra took a few steps back. This was not the reaction she had expected.
“Be gone from my sight and do not show your face near my shop again!”
The woman started muttering to herself, words Jahrra either couldn’t hear or failed to understand. She slammed the door so hard that Jahrra felt the door frame shudder. Numb with shock, she turned and rushed to her friend.
“What on Ethoes did you say to her?” Torrell insisted. “Jahrra!”
The two of them walked swiftly down the street, heading away from the buildings Jahrra had been so keen to explore. One day she would return to peruse these shops, but not today, not after what had transpired in front of the Mystic’s store.
Jahrra was sure she was a Mystic. Her hair, her eyes, the way she carried herself and the sound of her voice. Even the korehv outside her shop, now eyeing them balefully as they hurried back to the park, all pointed out that she was one of the rare women who could actually see bits of the future. But why had the mention of Denaeh caused her such fear?
Jahrra shook her head and finally paid heed to her friend, picking up her pace as Torrell pulled on her arm.
“Jahrra! You’re actually scaring me, tell me what happened. Why did you think that woman was a Mystic? Mystics are creatures of the past, before the Tyrant king gained power, you know that! He had them all destroyed before the Tanaan prince and his people were cursed. Before the effort to curse them drained all his power!”
Jahrra stopped walking. She took a few deep breaths to clear her reeling head. Of course she knew the history but what was taught and what was known did not always add up. Denaeh had somehow survived the Tyrant’s exterminations and if she had then so could others. Could this woman be afraid that her secret might get out? And if it was so dangerous to be known as a Mystic, why had Denaeh shared that information with Jahrra so readily? Jahrra gritted her teeth and took up walking briskly once again, stepping off of the hard, uneven cobblestones and onto the soft grass of the park.
“Jahrra!” Torrell shouted this time, still trying to get her friend to speak with her.
“I’m sorry,” Jahrra finally said, her voice sounding hoarse. “Hroombra, my guardian before Jaax, taught me a great deal about Mystics and several other things for that matter.” Jahrra fought back the pain that always arose when she thought of Hroombra. “I was so certain she fit the description.”
“Well,” Torrell said as she expelled a great breath, “next time you go around accusing people of being something that should no longer exist, think it through before hand, would you?”
Jahrra grinned sheepishly and nodded. Yes, think it through she would. In fact, she would be giving this whole matter a great deal of thought. Later, when she had the luxury of a rested mind and an overabundance of free time.
The saffron haired woman watched the two girls speed away from her shop as if she were cursing people with the plague. Good, she didn’t need the tall blond hanging around and piling more evidence against her true identity. The woman shivered, her skin pricking with goose bumps. She was frightened; no, she was terrified. No one had ever so much as considered she was anything more than a fortune teller. She kicked herself mentally.
You should have stayed in your crone form, Sahrielle, she said to herself. But how was she to know this girl and her friend would have any clue as to what she was? No one else had, not for centuries. How on Ethoes could a young woman, no older than twenty, know what to look for in a Mystic?
The answer sent a fresh wave of horror through her nerves. Archedenaeh.
“Impossible!” Sahrielle hissed, her voice now reflecting the aged form she had taken shortly after the girls had departed.
But if it were possible?
“No,” the old woman rasped, “she would have been the first one he destroyed.”
The Mystic paused for a moment, turning what she knew over and over again in her mind.
“Or,” she continued in a softer voice, her golden eyes roving about the room as if they weren’t seeing anything at all. As if they were looking far into the past. “Or he would have saved her for last.”
The woman shuddered again, saying an ancient prayer to the goddess as she clutched an amulet around her neck. Perhaps she should leave this place, a place that had been a safe haven for so long. The girl had spoken of the Mystic Archedenaeh, and she had some other strange aura about her, something Sahrielle hadn’t been able to decipher.